


Varieties of Scars

by Comicbooklovergreen



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: But it's there, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Not all of them good, Nothing too explicit, Self-Harm, Therese has deep feelings, Therese has unresolved family issues, based on a tumblr prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 22:23:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13086636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comicbooklovergreen/pseuds/Comicbooklovergreen
Summary: She’d covered it up as best she could. But Rindy saw and then Carol did too. Rindy gasped and offered to kiss it better like Mommy did for her. Therese said it was an accident.One of them believed her.





	Varieties of Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so, Merry Christmas, right? I have something significantly less depressing in the works, but this is a prompt I've been chewing on for awhile. If self-harm is a trigger for you, this isn't the one to read. Nothing graphic or extensive here, more the aftermath of the act than the actual act, but be warned. I've tried to treat the material respectfully, keeping in mind that it wasn't spoken of in the '50's, and understanding of it would be fairly limited.
> 
> Tough topic, I know, but if you read please do review. It makes all the difference in the world to us authors, even if it's just a few words.

Carol wasn’t supposed to know.

They weren’t supposed to keep secrets and Therese could tell Carol anything, of course she could.

Carol wasn’t supposed to know about this.

“Therese?”

That was why. That confused, worried tone, that edge of fear.

She’d covered up the cut as best she could, wore long sleeves. But Rindy was there for the weekend, grabbed her arm while they were playing and Therese had cried out before she could catch herself. And Carol had come--of course she had, she couldn’t just leave it alone even though Therese said over and over that she was fine—and she’d seen. Rindy had too and Rindy gasped and offered to kiss it better like Mommy did for her.

Therese said it was an accident. One of them believed her.

“Therese? Please, darling.”

Carol’s voice broke on the last word. Therese never wanted that, to be the person who did that. She was the broken one and now Carol would know and Carol would leave. Or, ask her to leave, really, it was Carol’s name on the apartment even though Carol always said it was theirs. But Carol wouldn’t want anything to be theirs anymore, Carol wouldn’t want to be hers, Carol wouldn’t—

“Angel? Therese, breathe. Just breathe, honey, slow. Please, Therese.”

Therese hadn’t realized she wasn’t until Carol said something, put a hand on her chest. Her breath was too fast. Everything was too fast when she got like this, her breathing, her thoughts. The pain slowed it. The blood was nice and slow when it dripped down her arm. How could she ever tell Carol that without sounding like the crazy person she was?

“Shh, it’s okay. Therese? It’s just us, alright? Just us. We’ll work it out, okay? We’ll take care of it, angel, just breathe.”

Just them. Carol called Abby and Abby had come and taken Rindy somewhere, so there would be no interruptions, so Carol could find out about that slash on her arm. But Carol couldn’t fix it, kiss it better. Carol reached out and put a cool hand on the back of Therese’s neck. They were on their bed, in their room, where everything was supposed to be safe. Therese had brought her past, her sickness in to hurt them.

“My mother died,” she said, long minutes after Carol had first sat her down and asked why, in barely a whisper, asked what she was thinking.

Carol’s hand at her neck tightened convulsively. Her other hand had been rubbing circles over Therese’s heart, but stopped.

“Oh God. Therese…”

“That’s not why,” Therese said, rougher than she meant. “Not only why, it’s not. She’s not.”

Her mother barely mattered, hadn’t in so long. Therese tried to explain it, how she was stressed anyway, how they were yelling at her at work, putting too much on her but she could never say no, or they’d never give her any responsibility again. She was trying so hard to do well but failing. Like when her mother taught her piano as a child and would actually look pleased, proud, until Therese’s small fingers fumbled the keys. But Therese didn’t tell Carol about the piano and her mother. Carol would think it mattered then.

Her mother was a pianist. Had been one. A better one than Therese remembered, or she’d gotten better over the years. It said so in the obituary, listed her mother’s accomplishments, her family.

Survived by her husband and two children. Therese wasn’t listed.

But that wasn’t why she’d cut, Therese tried to explain. It had more to do with work. The late Mrs. Nicolas Strully didn’t have the power to hurt Therese like that, or make her hurt herself.

She told Carol about the girl at the school who’d taught her. When Therese first saw her cutting, she’d been disgusted and terrified. And then things would happen. Friends Therese made at school would leave, just as Sister Alicia had. And Therese would be left with just her thoughts and no one like Carol to ask what she was thinking, force her to put it into words. It built and built and sometimes there was only one way Therese knew to release the pressure.

It was a sin, she was sure. The school was semi-religious and Therese’s old Bible had been woefully neglected, but she was sure it was a sin, that Sister Alicia would look at her with such disappointment if she knew.

Her mother wasn’t around to do that anymore.

Just Carol, really, and Therese couldn’t bear to look at Carol now.

“I’m sorry,” Therese said.

“What for?”

“For being…I’m sick, I’m a freak.” That’s what they all called the other girl, those who knew what she did to her arms. Therese didn’t participate, didn’t contradict, either. Therese was more careful about where and how she cut.

“You’re _not_ …”

Carol’s voice was sharp. Therese stared at her lap and cried, heard Carol breathe deeply.

“Therese, would you look at me?”

Carol put a hand on her cheek and rubbed softly, but Therese shook her head. She wouldn’t, this time, doubted she even could.

“You are not a freak,” Carol said anyway. “You won’t say that again.”

“But you’re scared of me.”

“No. Never.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m…”

She heard Carol breathe again.

“I’m scared _for_ you, Therese, there’s a difference.”

“Don’t be scared. Please.”

“I’m always scared when you hurt.”

Therese made herself look up, to Carol’s eyes. “It makes me feel better,” she said, still crying.

“How?”

The word was pained and baffled but maybe, possibly, Carol didn’t hate her. Therese tried to explain it again, how the blood was disgusting and calming, how it felt like the things in her head that threatened to tear her apart were escaping through her skin, a tiny hole to relieve the pressure. How the physical pain numbed the rest, at least for a time.

Carol asked hesitantly if it was like drinking was for her, and Therese supposed it was. Carol numbed herself with ryes when she was depressed, until that stopped working and the drinks only made her feel worse. That was how it was with the cuts, shame and pain afterward, having to cover what she’d done.

Carol asked her if she’d ever tried drinking instead, and Therese reminded her that alcohol affected them differently.

“It makes me sick the next morning,” she added. “I don’t like being sick after.”

She could hear it, practically, Carol asking how scars and bleeding were better. Carol did not ask though. Her actual question was worse.

“Has it happened here, in our house?”

“No,” Therese said, too quickly, then closed her eyes. “Not, before today I mean.”

“Oh baby…”

“I don’t do it often, I never have.”

When she was older, she found her pictures, found that things were slightly less overwhelming when seen through a camera lens. She could find other things, other moments to capture, and that usually kept the pressure at bay.

Usually.

The blade and the blood were an old response, a stupid, childish response from someone who hadn’t learned better.

Therese thought suddenly of the time she’d upset a plate at her mother’s friend’s home, how quickly her mother’s hand had flown out and struck her face.

She thought of sitting at her mother’s piano bench, in her lap, her mother’s hands covering hers on the keys, guiding them. How her mother had laughed in her ear and kissed her head as they played.

“I’m sorry,” Therese said, gasped really.

“Shh, no, no, Therese. I’m sorry about your mother.”

“Please don’t. I don’t want to talk about…ask me something else, please.”

Carol didn’t right away, it took a few seconds. “Not often, you said?”

“Not here, not with you,” Therese replied because she knew what Carol wasn’t asking, that Carol blamed herself for missing this.

“What about after Waterloo, what about then?”

Therese ducked her head and said nothing.

“God.” There were tears in Carol’s voice. “I’m so sorry. Angel, I’m so—”

“Carol,” Therese made herself look up again, framed Carol’s face in her hands. Such a beautiful face, even if she barely saw it through the tears. “It’s not your fault. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I—”

“It was my choice. You didn’t make me do anything. I wasn’t, I wasn’t strong and I didn’t…but it’s not your fault.” Therese’s voice caught on a sob, she couldn’t breathe. “I wanted to be strong for you. I wanted you to think I was.”

She’d come to the Ritz and Carol had looked at her with such pride, said she’d blossomed. Therese let her believe the lie.

Carol put her hands on Therese’s face. They were both framing the other.

“You are strong. You’ve always been strong, this doesn’t change a thing.”

“I’m not. I’m—”

“The strongest, most beautiful, most breathtakingly amazing woman I know. Hurting doesn’t make you weak.”

Therese tried to protest, sobbed instead.

Carol took her arm, very gently, placed a kiss near the angry, red mark without hurting it.

Therese wept then, remembering Rindy’s words. She wished it was that simple, that Carol’s kiss could magically fix everything, fix her.

Carol drew Therese into her arms, rocked the two of them back and forth. “I love you. I love you, angel, so much.”

“Don’t go,” Therese cried, though she’d tried not to.

“Never. Never, Therese. I’m right here. I’m right here, angel, I love you, so much.”

Therese clung, sobbed against Carol. The words weren’t a fix, weren’t magic, but they were enough. For now, for the next little while, they were enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr. Hit me up with prompts or just stop in to say hi.
> 
> http://cblgblog.tumblr.com/


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